


The Things in the Night

by G_N_Story



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Demon Hunters, Demons, Gore, Horror, Hunters & Hunting, Magic, Other, Scary, Stalking, Succubi & Incubi, Supernatural Elements, Supernatural Hunters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 20:56:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15469878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/G_N_Story/pseuds/G_N_Story
Summary: PROMPT: A short scary story about a woman at a bar realizing that she's being followed.





	The Things in the Night

You’re sat in the darkened corner of the bar, finger making lazy shapes in the condensation of your beer bottle, some generic American brew. You stole it off another table twenty minutes ago when the owner had shifted his drunken attention elsewhere for a moment. It’s disgusting on your tongue, you have a distinguished palette after all, and you desire something  _much_  richer. But for now, the bottle is a prop. You’re playing a role—casual bar goer, party girl—as your eyes search the dark bar. The bar is crowded, but it’s a nice place. It’s darkened for  _aesthetic_ , not because it’s a shit hole. Crystal chandeliers hang dangerously low over drunken patrons, their hidden light bulbs dimmed, granting you ample darkened spaces to slink about unnoticed. Ideal hunting grounds.

You spot a gentleman at the end of the bar. He’s older, mid-forties you guess, and he’s drinking something expensive, you can almost smell it from here. You shift yourself out of the shadows, sit up a little straighter. It doesn’t take long for him to notice you. How could he  _not_? You make a show of finishing the disgusting brew, eyes hooded, sneaking glances. The man is basking in your sudden attention. And you know you have your meal ticket for the night.

He doesn’t see you move, nobody really does, but one moment you are in your dark corner, and the next you are sliding up to the bar, three stools down from him, at the very end of the bar in a shadowed spot. You flip your hair, sneak a glance, and lean over the bar. You can feel his eyes on you, drinking you in. You order something expensive and, as predicted, he picks up the tab. You wink at him as you settle on your stool, sipping your expensive whiskey.

He takes the bait. Of course he does. In a moment, he’s seated beside you. You have no interest in what he is saying, but you play along. You laugh when you know you need to, flirt when you know you need to, reach out and gently caress his arm when you know you need to, and before you know it, his hand is on your knee and you know you are not going to go hungry tonight.

He drills on about whatever his boring profession is, and you feign interest, nodding and laughing and stroking his ego. But there’s a prickle on the back of your neck that you just can’t shake. Eyes on you. You shift on your stool, giving you the dual advantage of turning your whole body towards your target in insincere interest, and give you vantage of yet another darkened corner in the bar that seems to be designed to provide plenty of them. You don’t notice anything out of the ordinary, a couple seated at one booth, a party of four college students at another, nobody looking your way. Well, there are plenty of eyes looking your way, younger men with smaller wallets trying to catch your attention, but nobody that would be making your hair stand up the way it is. You shake it off, your target is noticing your distraction, and is whining like the man-child he is until you move your eyes back to him and crack a fake smile. He can’t tell the difference.

The motel is one you have visited before, but not for a very long time. It’s nice enough without being pretentious, and clean in a way that you quickly soil. The room is on the far corner of the parking lot, away from the buzzing, blinking neon vacancy light over the office. It’s dark—lights off, curtains drawn—and you are lazily pulling on your jacket and boots. You glance at the bloated body on the bed and, not for the first time, wonder if he is being missed. If somewhere nearby there is a woman sat alone in bed wondering where her husband is. This man’s indiscretion is not your fault, so you feel no guilt. But you still wonder.

You find his pants on the floor and extradite a wallet and a pair of keys. His car is nice and you can get a few miles out of it, maybe make it to the next city. You dig his credit card out, smiling as you pocket both items and toss the wallet on the bed next to the man whose name you have already forgotten. You glance out the window and wait for the vacancy sign to blink off again before you slip through the door and into his Bentley.

There’s a GPS lit up on the console, but you shut it down. You know where you are going as you squeal out of the parking lot, leaving the motel room door ajar and whatever other indecencies you have committed tonight in your wake. The mall is not far from the motel. You park the car away from the street lights and you slip through the shadows expertly, shimming open a janitorial door.

The mall is dark and massive, a bit haunting at night—even to you—completely empty of patrons. You make no noise as you slip through the darkness, winking at security cameras along the way. The ATM you seek is not far into the behemoth, tucked into a shadowy corner in the food court, and all it takes is four little numbers.

You let out a low whistle at the number of zeroes in front of you. Your belly is full, this is just a bonus. A very very nice bonus. In a time past, this kind of theft was much more demanding. Once upon a time, one needed to learn where a man hid all of his gold or silver or coins or what have you, wherever they were scattered and however they were hidden. That was hard. Then people kept their money in banks, a real physical thing that needed to be accessed through considerable skill and carried away in heavy bags. But now, with the internet, and money becoming more of a nebulous concept, all it took was four little numbers and a piece of plastic, and it was all in your greedy little hands.

Accounts emptied and stuffed into your bag, you toss the card negligently, not caring who finds it. There will be no evidence of you tomorrow, no speck of you in this city. Another unsolved crime in your long track record of unsolved crimes. You are about to turn to leave when you feel it again, that prickle on the back of your neck like somebody is watching you. You turn suspiciously to glare into the empty food court, once more finding nothing out of the ordinary. But twice in one night begins to raise alarm and you’re fairly certain that you’re being followed.

You blend back into the darkness and slip away, a little more quickly now, alert to every shift and movement around you as you leave the empty mall. Back in the car, you feel safe, but you know that’s only because your back is to something. You need to get out of here, so you shift into gear and leave tread marks on the pavement as you put this city in your rearview mirror.

Another night, another city, another bar, another meal ticket. You decided to drive somewhere familiar this time, dropping the expensive car at the gut shop in exchange for a pretty penny from some gangsters you know  _intimately_ downtown. They lament, saying it’s a shame to disassemble such a mastery of machinery. You toss them the keys and tell them that you don’t give a fuck what they do with it before you slide into the shadows and disappear.

Across the bar is your sister. Not biological,  _per say_ , but your sister nonetheless. She’s got her manicured claws sunk into some fresh piece of meat as well. Her name is Mara though tonight she is going by Emelia. Mara prefers younger stock. Smaller pay off, but bigger meals. Tonight it’s a particularly attractive young man, so handsome it’s almost painful to look at. Cut jaw, sharp blue eyes. Mara has a look on genuine enjoyment on her face and you can practically hear her purr from here. She likes the pretty ones, the young ones. They last longer, and she’s like a cat with her food, batting it around for fun before going in for the kill. Mara winks at you from across the bar and you smile conspiratorially back.

The man next to you is complaining about work and, again, you are faking interest at his dull stories. You notice that his liquor selection is not quite top shelf, but he’ll do for tonight. After all, you’ve had several big payouts in a row. Maybe it’s time you take a break, rest in your laurels. Maybe that’s why you came home. Maybe you should follow Mara’s suit and find yourself a toy to bat around instead of a bloated old man—same song, different swan—the unfaithful type were always so easy to pick out. They drink up your attention like fine wine, basking in it, silently complimenting themselves on being so damned attractive that they’ve got you in their nets, or at least they think. You know they know they’re not  _physically_  attractive to you, they know you’re after their wallet. So they’re congratulating themselves on making it this far in their professional careers, finally hooking someone who was an infant when they were entering the career field, again, at least they think. They’re happy to fork out a little more cash, to show of that AmEx in their wallet in a way they think is casual but is actually painfully obvert. They’d never dream that you’re also after something else.

Suddenly, shaking you out of your thoughts like a bucket of ice water upended, is that feeling again. More persistent this time. You’re not casual about it this time around, you whip about immediately, catching a pair of eyes that retreat around the corner almost instantly, but you know that you saw them now. The man in front of you is asking what’s the matter, but you wave your hand flippantly and disappear without a word.

You reach the corner and peer around the wall. It’s a well-lit hallway leading towards the kitchen.  _Well played_ , you think. But you know it now, you’re being followed. Across state-lines even. And you’ve lured whatever it is straight into your den, your home. A feeling that you haven’t felt in a very long time is creeping up your throat, climbing up the inside like some hellish parasite, choking you. You can’t place the sensation for one dizzying second before you realize it’s fear.

You’re quick across the bar, but Mara and her prey are nowhere to be found. For a moment, the fear is all you can feel, tuning out everything around you. But you’re smart so you push it down for the time being and formulate a plan. You know where Mara would go. Before you know it, you’re moving again, out onto the street, sliding down alleyways and darkened streets until you reach the hotel. You don’t have to go into the lobby, don’t have to ask what room, you already know. Back door, first room. It’s almost too easy to get the door unlocked. And what you find behind that door has you on your knees.

It’s Mara, or what’s left of her—a mangled, naked body, and a bloody stump of a neck. Her head is gone. Not just separated, but entirely gone, not in the room. Whoever has done this knew precisely what they were doing. The cut is almost medical, every stab wound perfectly aligned to a weak spot. You can’t breathe, your head swims and you brace yourself against the wall.

You want to stay but you know you can’t. Whoever or whatever did this was after you. You led them to Mara and now they are probably back at the bar trying to catch your trail again. You force yourself to stand, to approach the bloody form before you. You are no stranger to gore, by a long shot, but Mara was your sister. Your finger traces the mark on her arm, the same that is on your own forearm. You search for a moment before you find her necklace across the room. You pocket it, pausing one last time to kiss your fingers and press them to the mark on your sister’s arm before you are gone, back the way you came.

You’re in the same bar. It’s not much later, in fact your target from earlier is still in the same spot, dejected. But your plan is in place, you know what you need to do. You glide onto the stool beside your earlier intended and he perks up considerably while you weave some excuse. It’s not long before you feel the eyes upon you and you wonder if whatever it is is smart enough to understand your thinly veiled plot. Apparently not, because when you expedite the process and get your meal ticket to his feet and towards the parking lot, you can see a shape shifting on the edge of your vision and you know your stalker has taken the bait.

When Robert or Steven or whatever asks what hotel, you bat your lashes and say you know a better place. Poor bastard is in for the ride of his life tonight.

This man’s car is not nearly as nice, but all thoughts of his bank account have been pushed aside for more pressing matters. You encourage him to drive slow enough to catch a tail, but fast enough to not rouse suspicion. The den is not far and it’s mere minutes before Robert or Steven is pulling into a spot in the almost frighteningly dark parking garage beneath the complex.

Above you, the deep pulse of music is heard. The club is for the elite and the addicted, and you wink at your captive and tell him as much. He looks bewildered but excited as you weave your arm into his and navigate the dark expertly, finding the staircase and taking the steps quickly.

At the top of the stairs, smoke and black light and a haze of something feral and instinctive engulf you both. The pheromones make the poor man at your side go lax. You can’t see far into the club, by design. One of your sisters smiles at you at the top of the stairs and your shift the weight of Robert or Steven into her welcoming arms. He barely even notices the change and is quickly whisked away. You wonder dully if you should read him his last rites but you have more important things to think about. So you plunge into the cloud and move deeper into the club.

All around you is indulgence of the most sinful kind. The music is low and erotic, just loud enough but not too loud to completely mask the moans of pleasure from every corner. You left the den long ago. The mindless addicts that stick around the place drive you crazy. You don’t understand why they’re not put out of their misery once their bank accounts are drained but, then again, you were always the more financially minded of your sisters. Many like to keep their favorite toy captive for when they hunger. You have never had the desire.

The den is set up like a maze, a labyrinth of sin. One can only glance a single scene of absolution at a time before the smoke moves to cover up and reveal a different one. It’s disorienting by design, but you know the place well. And you know where your stalker will enter, if he’s smart. This is what he wanted, after all, to be led to the den.

You’re in the back room, away from the music and the haze and you know that whatever is following you has hidden itself here. You’ve walked into a trap, and you know it.

The lights flick on and you scream, blisters forming on your skin as you fall to your knees. The man running at you is someone you recognize. The young man from the bar, Mara’s intended victim, his blue eyes lit like fire. He’s on you, silver dagger in hand, his weight pinning you as he brings the knife down again and again.

Always willing to sacrifice for your sisters, you are. He’s taken the bait. You’re the one he wants, the one he has followed, the one who led him into your home, you’re the one who must pay the price. The pain is…excruciating, only made more so by the fact that it’s been centuries since you have felt pain.

“ _Succubus bitch_ ,” the man growls out as he brings the knife down again. He’s weakened you, and now he will go in for the kill.

But the hunter forgets that he is in a den of snakes, the hearth of sin. The lights go off once more and his weight is suddenly gone. One of your sisters pulls you up and away, the movement making you scream in pain. She gives you a last glance before diving towards the melee splayed out before you. You clutch your chest and watch the man be gutted. Teeth and claws. The smell of blood makes you hungry, but nobody is making a meal of the hunter. He won’t get the satisfaction of a pleasurable death, not when he killed one of your sisters.

This hunter is dead, but he was smart. He has backup and you can hear them in the club. But you know however many have invaded your home, the haze and the maze have them confused and disoriented. Easy pickings and you watch your sisters slither out towards the club’s main floor to dispense of this hunter’s companions.

They were in way over their heads. Never chase a succubus to her den.

You’re still hurt, still bleeding, but it’s nothing fatal. Painfully, you are able to drag yourself to the bloody mess before you. You were wrong, this hunter is not dead yet. But he nearly is.

You know that your sisters would not approve, but you didn’t leave the den because you were the most orthodox succubus. Besides, this is the sweetest taste, the dying breath, and you know that the vindictive one is the sweetest of them all. You smile wickedly down on him and he knows what you are going to do. He is trying to move his mangled body, trying to get away. You laugh maniacally, basking in your own twisted game.

He wants a clean death, this hunter, this stalker, this thing in the night. He had no idea that the other things in the night are much hungrier than him. And as you lean down and kiss his bloody lips, you drain him slowly, basking in it, and watch the life leave his beautiful, terrified eyes.

Never hunt a hunter.


End file.
